Sales trainers like to breathe in media sales at 40,000 feet and then pontificate on how digital salespeople need to be more compassionate, consultative sellers who don't sell ads but rather offer solutions to clients' problems. The reality is that sales calls happen on the ground with media buyers. They often sound like the following example, where the problem clients want to solve with their online ad dollars is how to drive more exposure to the most expensive ad the client has ever built: its own Web site.

When it comes to online publishing, every pixel counts. Maximizing the potential of digital real estate is an ongoing challenge. Often getting visitors to a website is the first hurdle, but keeping their attention and finding engaging monetization opportunities continues to be an ongoing struggle. A popular tool in this arena is content modules on article pages. Many publishers implement content modules for the recirculation of visitors within their website. Some use them as a source of revenue. And still more use them for both.

Last year I shared my opinion that web surfing is broken: finding relevant content online has become a challenge, both for those who produce content (publishers) and those who consume content (readers). This is a macroscopic problem, meaning that it affects all online publishers and all readers: there is simply too much content out there. More recently I have come to realize that a parallel problem exists at the micro level: navigation of individual sites is also broken.